


in melting fractals

by goldafterglow



Category: Prospect (2018)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Breathplay, Choking, Deepthroating, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Other, Poetry, Reading Aloud, Seasonal Affective Disorder, Smut, Vaginal Sex, ezra reads you his lesbian mf poetry and it makes you horny like that's-, lesbian poetry, seasonal depression, y'all this is something else I can tell you that much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-14 13:26:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29543037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldafterglow/pseuds/goldafterglow
Summary: Nothing, not even the frost, can outrun the sunshine."You feel his lips turn to a smug grin, and you know it’s your fault - he’s being rewarded, after all, for his teasing. But not even in indignation can you bring yourself to mind. You so foolishly love seeing him light, so boundlessly happy as if you bring him sanctity, make him feel secure. Things like anchors of sugar and woven velvet boulders, kind and pulling in a reassuring drag.He can’t seem to stop kissing you; not when your hands travel up his arms, along the slopes of his shoulders and cupping his neck, pulling along each protruding vein so they can find his grown-out hair. It’s no kiss of passion, rather an exchange of sacred vows that neither of you have ever needed to speak into the air.He takes your breath away all the same."
Relationships: Ezra (Prospect 2018)/Reader, Ezra (Prospect 2018)/You
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25





	in melting fractals

The frost is impersonal.

She cares not who she victimizes. She is potent, staining everything, everyone. Blue. Drags her misery across exposed flesh, leaves violent discolored splotches on her victims as if to mark them, taking pride in her crimes. 

Lonely. 

She seeks the comfort of others by stitching herself to them, hopes that it may fill her quivering desire for companionship. But nothing is substantive. So she continues her fruitless quest, continues fermenting in misery with hopes that she may feed off of weaning joy. There is nothing quite like the motivation of emptiness, the heartbreaking incitement of agony and unfulfilled validation.

She knows she is not wanted.

So it is safer to be impersonal, is it not? Safer to ruin everything until it is no longer discernible what had been glum and who she had made glum, until there is no longer existing evidence that she is needed by no one, she is sought after by nothing.

“ _Ezra?_ ”

His head shoots up at the sweet call of his name, eyes darting around the small space in front of his cot. He can’t find the source of the noise, that honeysuckle disembodied chant that has filled his eyes with the affectionate pulse of the humming cicadas.

“Yes, stardust?” he answers.

“Would you come here?” He sighs softly to himself, not out of annoyance but rather…content. That whisper of his smile passes his lips in the form of fleeting air as he lets his journal close, pen lodged deep towards the spine to keep his place between the countless pages of scribbles, poems, diary entries. His nonsense. He has other journals, each in poorer condition than the ones after it, all filled to the brim with that small black scratch that you’ve come to adore. But this journal had been a gift from you, something small and blank. A stark contrast to his scarred, singed heart. The hard cover of the book has a thin film of red leather on it, the words “ _Within Ezra_ ” engraved in delicate golden lettering.

It was rather unceremonious, the day you’d given it to him. You had been too excited to hide it away, perhaps wait for a successful dig or a birthday or some other day of glory. So the moment you’d crawled back into the pod, hands filled with supplies for your next digging spree, you’d dropped everything to hand it to him. You had been worried he wouldn’t like it, some leather-bound stack of off-white pages with meaningless words on the front. But when he asked you so lowly, so _pathetically_ , “ _Stardust, may I kiss you?_ ” it became widely evident that you could’ve given him anything, at any time, and he would have melted between your fingers like the easy flow of river water all the same.

That was the first time he’d ever kissed you.

And he thinks that’s one of the things he loves about you - that you don’t savor happiness. Don’t often tell yourself that you aren’t _allowed_ to wield joy unless you’ve earned it, unless the circumstances constitute it. He sees you let bliss crash into you as it comes, never catches you sprinting away from the tide. He’s learned from you how to do the same.

He smiles to himself at the thought, thumb sliding over the engraving just once as if it will imprint in his skin before he gets up in the small enclosure to find your voice in hopes of attaching your pretty eyes to it, attaching your body that he loves so much to it. Perchance one of the splendid things about being cramped in a drop pod is that with just a half rotation he finds you standing by an open compartment. It’s one he didn’t look deep into when you both first rented the pod, filled with trinkets and abandoned PUZU keychains from old renters. When he looks back up at you, you’re gazing at a giant grey sweater. It’s far too big to fit either of you, more fittingly a blanket, covered in fluff and well-worn. It big enough to swallow him, consume him like the bleary melancholy of the glass sky.

You’re wearing warm clothes, covered in fleece from the shoulders down in hopes of combating the nearly uninhabitable temperatures of the north of the Green. The dig had been good, an uninterrupted harvest since no one with sense would think to travel so far north, and it had put you both in far better moods as the frost placed devastating kisses under your eyes. But as he held your frame last night, shivering under the measly blankets and digging into his chest for sanction, he knew that a good mood would not warm your blood.

“Stardust?” he says quietly, slowly stepping towards you. You look up at the familiar name, immediately smiling at the sound of his voice. He knows you’re still cold, knows you’re fighting off the loud chattering of your teeth. And yet you smile. This is no life for someone as sweet as you, someone as powerful and delicate and as _good_ as you. To be shackled to him by circumstance, or worse, by the boundless beating of your heart. Perpetual suffering.

If he is the frost, then you must be the sunshine.

Heated, comforting. Melts him at the edges, turning sharp peaks into soft, slippery valleys that children can sled on. He remembers prospecting without you, remembers what it felt like to be so concerned with survival, so hinged on relying on nobody but himself that the company became bleak. Individuals turned to grey. Grey like a billowing sky, grey like dead skin, grey like an oversized sweater with two sleeves.

But when you look at him, he is reduced to sludge. Some cold, watery thing that nourishes the wildflowers beneath his chest and nurtures gardens of lilac and lavender. The deep piercing of your eyes into his throat, seeing the words queued for forthcoming parables before he gets the chance to say them. He is the frost. And you are the sunshine.

You’re quick to notice him, face growing soft as he presses a gentle kiss to your forehead in greeting. When he pulls back, you hold up the sweater to him, level with his eyes. The sweater looks clean, almost brand new, cable knit stitches adorning the front in intricate stripes. He thinks to himself that it’s a beautiful thing, a piece that a knitter somewhere in the Bakhroma system should be proud of.

“Is this yours?” you ask. He puts his hand on yours so that he can lower his gaze, feast his eyes upon the glowing vision of you. Your skin is tighter, eyes slightly duller. He knows it has to do with the ice stuck to the outer walls of the pod. He wants to cup your soft cheek, provide you with _something_ warm, but his hands are cold. He is cold. And he has nothing to give you.

He never has.

“I’ve never seen it before.” Your forehead crinkles a little, in a way that makes him want to smooth it with his lips, but he refrains. He’s not sure what this dull cloud above his head is that pulls him from you, makes his limbs too heavy to raise, his fingers too weak to cup your jaw. “It’s far too big for me anyways, stardust.”

“I found it here,” you explain. “Someone else must’ve left it behind. But I think you’d look beautiful in it.” He can’t deny the warmth that fills him when he sees your wide eyes, pleading and gentle for him as you push the sweater closer. But grey is the color of unfulfilled dreams. The color of bonfire smoke, dead grass, dead things. The color, the frost, the chill and the cold tacks dread to his lungs, make each breath a little less desirable to take.

He wishes he could explain it to you.

But he can’t.

“If you say so, stardust.” But the agreement doesn’t reach his eyes, and his smile can’t seem to reach high enough either. It is unsettling, his brevity, and you are too frightened to ask him about it.

“Um - I’ll finish inventory for today, Ezra,” you say softly, and you notice his shoulders drop a little. As if you’ve lifted some weight off of him. Inventory isn’t much work - he usually enjoys it. Says it aids in his _unwinding,_ the methodical counting of bit bars packaged in decievingly colorful plastic and water nearly turned to ice by the climate _._ You wonder when such a little thing became so taxing for him. You wonder what has stolen all of his energy, made his life a chore.

You wonder how long he has been like this.

He nods silently, leaning down to kiss your head as if it wasn’t his own muscles but gravity leading him, pulling him to you like a tired moth to a bed of flames fluttering only to die.

He slinks back over to the cot, lays deep in it. He doesn’t pick his journal back up; he closes his eyes. He pulls the blanket over himself. And he sleeps.

It’s only the middle of the day.

He wasn’t like this just a cycle and a half before, sitting in the drop pod still up in the Pug with you. He was happy. Smiling was easy, breathing and giggling and dancing were all so _easy_. And he still has you; at least, while you are stuck here with him. But then he touched ground, felt the frost bite into his soft neck, and suddenly he was cold. The snow should have been as whimsically brilliant for him as it was for you, but as he ran through the buildup of it with you on his way to the dig he felt so _exhausted_. He had chalked it up to old age. Perhaps his blonde streak was growing duller? His winkles creasing deeper? But then he came back, anything but empty handed, and he still felt drained. He felt drained when he woke up the next morning, too much so to get out of bed. Something is wrong.

And it’s not you. Not in the name of Kevva would he ever blame you. Not his shining ember, glittery and gorgeous and all his to hold hostage in his heart. It was the frost. Ice collected on the metal walls of the pod, grew thick on the outside. It formed sheets around his body, growing layer after layer until he couldn’t quite feel how many layers were there, how many growing fractals have pierced his numbed skin. He is encased in her, and she sinks into every waking crevice of his body, restrains him from moving. Making it difficult to take steps because his feet are dragging through the blizzard and he can’t _get_ to you.

It’s not you.

But he couldn’t tell you. He could never do such a cruel thing, burden you with his pain and drive you up canyons in worry. He knows you love him, for now, and he doesn’t want to hog all of it when he knows there are so many other things that deserve it. The birds, the flowers, soft sweaters. So he goes back to sleep alone in hopes that when he wakes he’ll have slept off the frost.

–

Just the sight of him warms you.

You had left him alone in the pod for a little, suiting up as he slept in an attempt to work at the ice that has infiltrated the exposed external parts of the pod, shaving away for what must’ve been an hour or two. Ezra never would have let you step out of the safety of the drop pod by yourself for that long, and he would’ve chided himself for being too groggy to stop you. But when you climbed back in you caught him wide awake, reading something in that red journal of his.

And wearing a grey, cable knit sweater.

You couldn’t hide your cheeky smile as you took your suit off, constantly casting glances his way. He really does look cozy, looks like he should have a warm mug of tea in front of him and a pair of rounded glasses with thin golden frames. It’s still frightfully cold in the pod, but he seems to be in a better mood than before. It’s like this that you remember that he was once just a babe, and even now is just a man. “ _I am by no means immune to intrigue, sweet girl”_ he’d tell you if you tried to ask him what enticed him to put the sweater on. “ _And must there be an ulterior motive for taking the warm advice of my lover?”_

He reminds you of comforting things, soft polar bear plushies and fluffy blankets decorated with signets and flowers. You can’t help but stand and admire him for a moment, even as the frigid air stings your skin. The moment is short lived, however, as you approach your beguiling creature, soft in his space and silently beckoning to you.

He smiles down at you like he’s admiring the prettiest peach in the grove as you crawl into his lap, thoroughly interrupting his avid journaling. He’s far too enamored with you to ever fathom lending you divided attention, loaning you borrowed time, so he gently tosses the book onto the pillow.

“When are you ever up to any good, promiscuous thing?” he teases. You giggle, resting your cheek on his chest and hugging him close. He feels your hands dig into the plush fabric of his sweater, fingers grasping at the flesh of his back. _This is enough,_ he thinks. _My lover is enough._

“M’cold, Ezra.” He mocks you with his pout, forehead digging into the top of yours as if to encapsulate you, surround you in his warmth. He is attentive enough to know there is truth to your words - you tremble from the cold’s menacing rakes, purse your lips as though that is from where all of your heat evades you. But he is intuitive enough to gather that there is something else picking at your beautiful mind.

“Oh _no_ , now that just won’t do, will it?” he pouts.

“You’re making fun of me?” you ask. You lift your chin to cast a narrow gaze at him, eyes accusatory, and he mirrors your expression, clearly having far too much fun for your liking. You can somehow feel the sheen of cool air pass your exposed collarbones, the small exposed skin of the backs of your necks. It shakes your spine like the rustle of fir trees, something unstable and torturous.

“ _Sunlight_ , when have I ever harbored ill will towards you? I am appalled by such a treacherous - _mmm_.” He is swiftly cut off with the press of your lips, slotted between his as if in retaliation. Even then, he is enjoying himself. There is a home in your kiss, permanence and companionship and a loose guarantee that he isn’t lonely. That even when you’re not with him, you’ll always be bugging his heart. It tastes like the stones by a coursing river, natural and caressed.

You feel his lips turn to a smug grin, and you know it’s your fault - he’s being rewarded, after all, for his teasing. But not even in indignation can you bring yourself to mind. You so foolishly love seeing him light, so boundlessly happy as if you bring him sanctity, make him feel secure. Things like anchors of sugar and woven velvet boulders, kind and pulling in a reassuring drag. 

He can’t seem to stop kissing you; not when your hands travel up his arms, along the slopes of his shoulders and cupping his neck, pulling along each protruding vein so they can find his grown-out hair. It’s no kiss of passion, rather an exchange of sacred vows that neither of you have ever needed to speak into the air.

He takes your breath away all the same.

When you pull away, breaths candied and forehead to his, there is solemnity cast over his features. You sense the return of something gloomy, a cluster of clouds that hollows your sweet lover into a meager husk. Thoughts that carve out his insides, draw skulls in his heart and dead skies on his tongue. They seem to reach back into his throat, pull his lips down and suppress the words he’d be spilling to you by now.

He only ever seems to get moments now.

He frightens you like this. There is something _wrong_ , something deeply not okay within him, and it is nothing tangible. It’s not something you can kiss better, not something you can stitch and sew and heal with nimble fingers and ample rest. You don’t know how to _heal_ him or if you even can, leting a helpless feather be shoved by the rapids.

You take in the entirety of his figure. Soft lips that hold you close, eyes that have been dulled by ice and wind, and a dangling right sleeve. It almost looks sad, a lone tunnel of fabric exiled from its companions. You knew it had been bothering him; each swing of the sleeve against him an unnecessary reminder of something he could never forget. Of a nightmare that is stapled to his sockets, tacked to the soft flesh of his cheeks for eternity.

“May I?” you ask hesitantly. He smiles softly at your apprehension, endeared by your consideration. A moment. Your fingers are warm against his shoulders, pressing into the patch of exposed skin by his neck. He looks up at you, doe-eyed and completely unfair, and nods.

“Go ahead, sweet thing,” he says; he doesn’t need to know your intentions to know you will always mean well. Gingerly, you slip your arm into the sleeve, pulling it in and keeping it tucked inside the sweater. When you pull back he appears as the perfect gift, wrapped in grey cloudy bliss and sealed with a pout. You pout back, teasing him with your eyes as wide as they go and your bottom lip puffed. You let your hands find his temples, cupping the sides of his head as though he may fall over without your stability, the sure press of your golden hands holding him upright.

“You’re so _pretty_ , Ezra.” He can’t hold his smile in then. 

When his lips quirk to the right you lean forward to kiss the delicate bump of his nose. He remains silent. It’s alarming, the empty air filling your eyes. He knows you well enough to discern that you are distressed, _worried_ about him, but he doesn’t know what to say. He’s not used to these feelings, not used to the numbing sensation of the winter chill, and how silly would he be to say such a thing out loud?

He watches your hand trace down his arm, travel along the curve of his tricep and down along the center of his forearm. He wonders if you can feel the veins through the soft fabric, the rapid pulsing of his blood vessels underneath his skin. Your touch is centering, grounding, and he is growing exhilarated by how _alive_ he feels. Your fingers trace down his hand, into the dip of his palm, and just as you are about to detach yourself he closes his fist tight around you. 

His eyes are fixated on your hand in his, relaxing slightly one you realize what he is doing. _Don’t let go of me, don’t let me float off into the stars. Hold me to the ground, in your arms. Hold me in your arms._ You move carefully, intertwining your fingers with his, and you’ve never felt a tighter grip. You wrap an arm around his neck, pulling him into your embrace, and he brings your clasped hands between your bodies, a place to keep them warm like a mother bird nurturing her chicks.

“Love you,” you whisper into him, letting the words press against his cheek and dissolve into his skin. “Love you so much, Ezra.” He nods, almost frantic. He wants you to know that it’s not you, that you are the only good thing that the stars have let him keep.

He truly is cozy like this, wrapped up in a fresh sweater and his lover. He can feel you beginning to chip at the thick layer of ice along the edges of his heart, beginning to slowly thaw him in the warmth of your hands. He could stay here with you for hours, _cycles_ , unbothered and unyielding.

With another kiss to his nose that sends butterflies fluttering through his lungs, tickling his muscles and flitting along his belly, you gently push him back. Somehow you always manage to have your way with him, not that he minds. He’s always been happy when you are, always satisfied when you’ve been placated. He is pushed to lie back, flat on the cot so you can secure your head under his chin and lay half on top of him.

“Ezra?” you call again. 

“What is it?” You prop your chin up on his shoulder to look at him proper. He can barely stand to look into your needy eyes, too sweet and pleading for him to stare too long. His hand leaves yours to press against your forehead, trailing along your hairline before settling to cup your cheek.

“Will you read to me?” He doesn’t need to look down at you, pressing his lips to the crown of your head.

“How could I _ever_ refuse a voice so sweet?” is his saccharine reply, smiling easy. A moment. His mouth speaks into your skin, the light buzz of his low drawl like streamers pulling through the molten thick of your dewy gaze. He feels you smile against him, feels your lips pucker to kiss the column of his neck. He begins racking through his mind, trying to decide what to read. _Perhaps nonfiction, something to put you to sleep? Or one of those ancient epic poems that even he needs time to make sense of. Romantic literature?_ He tilts his chin to the side, finding the prime culprit whose sacred pages he could expose to you: his journal.

Something from within Ezra.

“How about something of mine, hmm?” Your eyes light up as he reaches for the book, thumbing through the pages until he comes upon his most recently completed body of work. His heart swells at your enthusiasm, the slow pour of molten roses beginning to press against the walls. Why it hurts to be loved, he will never understand. _Pangs_ in his sternum, kicks to the diaphragm, asphyxiation and vertigo. Perhaps Kevva’s cruel trick, something sinister to confuse the unbeknownst, but he knows better. He recognizes the good pain, the _healing_ pain.

You watch him squint slightly. There are lines by his eyes, worn out after excessive use, marking his love for literature and words and all things ink-drawn. They leave little marks in his flesh, as if to highlight just how deep the brown of his eyes pool, just how inconceivably far he can pull you in before you are helpless to escape. He has captured you, laid you to rest in the rings of his eyes. Sinking, sleeping.

Safe.

You don’t notice your smile once he begins to read, journal suspended over his face and far too close to his vision to be healthy. But he is already engrossed, returned to the mystic universe of his muses, and you don’t have the heart to advise him otherwise.

His lips move like snakes. Slow, domineering, sinister and slithering around your throat, locking you in place. They move carefully, like something you shouldn’t be allowed to admire without having sacrificed blood. Plump, pink, swelled with the nectar of peaches and venom. It’s almost as intoxicating to watch as it is to listen to him. Oh, to _listen_ to him. It’s a feeling, you think. His languid tone a demand, lines and stanzas twisting and writhing under the rough tugging of his drawl. It frays the edges, embellishes and poisons so that you become sick with it, ill from just how miserably entranced you are by this fleeting soul that has been bound to you with shimmering, silvery, silk ties.

You are so enamored by him that he is already some way through reading before you can truly dissolve his words.

“ _…it is warmth._

_Her rays like alabaster smiles and the glint of rolling coins._

_Sunshine golden.”_

You haven’t listened to more than three lines before you lose focus again; his voice is so _caramel_ , smooth and rich and deep. Addicting. It fills your ears, demands to be heard, and you can hardly bring yourself to focus on his words. You feel bad - it’s so _vulnerable_ of a moment, Ezra openly singing his art to you. And yet you have no idea how to pay attention when he’s speaking into your ear like this, as if he is _trying_ to seduce you.

And by Kevva’s ungodly creations, it’s working.

You don’t notice the first kiss you lay on his neck. He doesn’t seem to register it either, and with your luck he won’t notice _any_ of the things you’re going to do to him, but you press your lips to his skin again. And again. Again.

Tongue darting out to trace one of those swelling veins that perpetually entice you, there is no noise that escapes your throat as you drag along him. You hear him huff, as if only acknowledging your protruding lust and greed for the sake of his art. But you’ve begun to enjoy yourself too much. His adam’s apple bobs fervently, bouncing under the now slick skin of his throat in intrigue and stimulation.

He ignores you up until your covetous hand begins to slide.

Past his chest, slowly trailing along his soft belly, and Ezra is not so foolish as to be blind to your charged intentions. You’re worried he might scold you, express some sort of frustration with you, but you just can’t _help_ it. The tethers of his body are too powerful, wrap around you with a bruising grip, and you’ve always been willing to crack your skull against the pavement if it meant being able to dive into him, even for just a second.

He pauses his reading to look down at you and you catch the slight falter in his breathing at the feeling of you everywhere. Your mouth, oh your _mouth_ , is soft against him. Wet. He is sensitive, defenseless to your gentle onslaught, and the sinister slither of your fingers towards the waistline of his sweats tells him you want more.

So does he.

“Now what promiscuous deviance are you trying on me, my little minx?” he tuts, pink lips flushed and protruding. His journal remains in his hand, but to the side of his face so that he can witness your dalliance properly. You smile up at him sweetly, hand sliding over the front of the thin fabric to palm at his arousal.

“Should I stop?” you taunt cheekily, hand freezing over his hardened flesh. He is amused by your antics, always powerless to the coercion of your touch, and shakes his head with an adoring indignation.

“Did I say you should stop, sweet girl?” His eyes are locked with yours, wicked desperation flicking behind the dark pools of his eyes like evil, greedy and wrapping around your wrists.

Your grin is nothing if not entirely indicative of your arousal, palm pressing against him harder, and he can barely hide the strained nature of his exhale. _Shit_ you feel good, you always feel good, and he throbs to tell you. You do well with the encouragement, hearing him spill filth over your chest about how he’s always ready to take you at any moment given that you’ll have him, always feeling the ghost of your cunt squeezing him like a vice when you cum around him. And yet, as he catches the glint of mischief sparkle in your eyes, he knows that must be exactly what you want from him. He feels the urge to deny you, to withhold the sweet sounds you try to pry from him. He oddly doesn’t want to give you the satisfaction of the buck of his hips, the clamp of his eyes shut, the tight grip of his hand in your hair. 

He keeps reading.

_“The frost bows to her, less of subordination and more of her loose knees_

_They fail her at the sight of shimmering diamonds piercing her thick frozen coat.”_

He’s stiff against his own belly now, cock raised to attention, and yet your strokes seem to grow _more_ languid, _less_ concerned as you taste the syrupy salt of his pulse. He knows your game, knows _exactly_ how you like to play with him, and he is nothing if not adverse to losing. So he clears his throat and continues on his course, staying situated in the calm trickle of stream water down the bank of his word-drawn palace.

_“She develops cracks._

_She greets the lilies, winks at the butterflies._

_The newborns feel her kisses. The lonely feel her nuzzle._

_She loves all._

_She loves the frost.”_

He can sense your frustration at his apathy, tugging at the tight seams of your eyes as if to unravel you with only a song. He maintains his slow-paced, easy, dark tone like applewood fashions the column of his throat, and you quickly grow feral. He must know what he is doing to you, reading unbothered like you aren’t _palming his cock._ He sees you look up at him at the murky blurred cusp of his vision, catches spores of you biting your lip.

You stop.

There is not a falter but a slight puff of air in his words, and you know he thinks he’s won. But as you take the flesh of his shoulder between your teeth, _right_ where you get him melting for you, you’re reminded that this is _your_ angel, _your_ beacon of joy, and you would be remiss to cede to him when you’ve spent so long learning how to make him sing for you.

You pull up at his waistband, fingers slipping past and finding the hot swell of his cock, uncovered and rock hard. It’s at this that you _finally_ get a hitch, subtle but present, and you’re shameless in your victorious hum as your kisses fall to the divot at the bottom of his neck. You take him in your grip, touch feather light as you thumb him at the tip, and are pleased to be greeted by the slick of his precum beading out.

So he _has_ been enjoying this.

You spread his arousal around the sensitive head, drawing circles and lines that pass his slit. On any other day he might already by gasping, a sweet puddle at your mercy, but he continues to read as if unfazed.

_“They are tantalizing,_

_touches of temperature._

_Not heat_

_Not chill._

_Warmth._

_The gentle beasts of meadows lap at their love._

_Water seeps from their intertwining fingers,_

_perpetual in their ongoing waltz.”_

You grip him tightly at the base, dragging your fist up, and he doesn’t so much as furrow a brow. You can’t _fathom_ how he’s so responseless, not the Ezra that you know and cum for, and you eyes stay strained on him as you jerk him. You’ve grown impatient, unwilling to waver but _desperate_ for him to say something to you, and the sinful pull on his voice has somehow managed to create a slick pool between your thighs.

You hand pumps harshly, thirteen, fourteen, _fifteen_ times and you are rewarded with another spurt of precum that slides down his cock, coats your hand, but he won’t even look at you, eyes trained on the curled pages of that forsaken journal you’d bought him. You want him to beg, want him to moan and whimper for you the way he always makes you do for him, and it’s just _not fair_.

You remove your hand from under his sweats, staring at him as you take your thumb and bring it to your lips. He is salty on your tongue, tastes like cheeky grins and lullabies, and when he reads the next line you’re sure his resolve is too powerful for you - perhaps you’ve even lost your touch.

But he does see.

He sees everything you do, feels the wild temptation of your fingers on him. His heart is racing, lungs aching to breath more air in because you’ve stolen every last molecule of oxygen from his tired, aching chest. His eyes nearly bulged when your thumb pressed into the slit of his cock, his words practically collapsing on his tongue when you tug his so deliciously. He wonders if you’ve noticed his reading voice get deeper, trying desperately to compensate for how absolutely spineless you make him with the swipe of a finger.

_“The frost is unwanted, yet they drink her blood._

_And the sunshine slices her blades deep into her chest._

_Bloodlet.”_

He hopes his grin is hidden when he feels you shift, crawling further down his body. You’re such a pretty thing, _his_ pretty thing, climbing down to reach fallen fruit. He feels you nuzzle his cock, gentle and eager. Then your lips, kissing him through the fabric of his sweats. He chokes on his own moan, the stanzas on his tongue shoving the noise back down into the darkness, and they only shove harder when you kiss along his entire length, teasing and restrained gestures meant to get him worked up.

Ironic as yet another spurt of precum dribbles down his cock and drips onto his belly.

Suddenly, you reach into the confines of his sweats, finally pulling his cock out, and there truly wasn’t much of a point since it’s already taut against his stomach, hard and red and _spilling_ from the slit. You notice where it’s smeared onto his skin and flatten your tongue against him, taking every salty drop on your tongue, and when you look up at him you could _swear_ his hand twitches. So does his cock.

_“Because in the wake of the light,_

_Frost becomes snow._

_Snow weeps”_

Your tongue wastes little time, leaving the smallest kitten lick on his red cockhead, and he grips the journal with a blinding pressure. He’s so close, almost done reading, and his voice _still doesn’t falter_. He feels your fist wrap around his base, mouth picking up the pace against him, and there is pride that swells through him. Childish, he knows, but as he listens to his voice read slow and smooth like there isn’t the slightest of peculiarities he knows he has won.

_“Cold drops,_

_Glimmering like gems in the beating - oh, my minx.”_

You provide no warning to him before enveloping his cock in your mouth, taking him as far back as your can. Your throat is so _wet_ around him, so tight, and it’s hot like the soft press of your tongue against a protruding vein on the underside of him and _fuck_ he can’t take it anymore.

You’re not sure which is first: the thud of his journal hitting the pillow or his hand fisting your hair.

You moan around him loudly, and he knows it’s out of glory that you sing for him. He groans deep, gripping you at the roots, and you’d have a smug grin painted on your face if his cock wasn’t shoved down your throat. He has no upper hand, he never did, and when he thinks about the sight of you, lips stretched over him and nose brushing against the hairs there, his head starts to spin.

“ _Minx_ ,” he breathes again, and you know he’s not mad at you as you breathe through your nose, looking him dead in the eyes through the pulsing strain behind your face. “Not an ounce of restraint in your body, is there stardust? Couldn’t - _yesss, oh shit, love your t-tongue_ \- couldn’t help yourself.”

There are tears pouring from the crevices of your mystifying eyes as you keep his throbbing cock warm in your throat. He needs friction, needs you to move, but he doesn’t ever want to have to stop admiring your holy vision. Perhaps this is why he never seems to have control over you - he wants too much all at once. Indecisiveness. And why should you force him to make decisions so dire as _how he should take you_ when you can give him what you want to, give him the opportunity to let his mind pulse blankly. He kneads through tufts of hair, breaths heavy as he watches you take him. His hand doesn’t push or pull, has no real control over you, and yet there is something about the way his fingers play with you that makes you want to be a-

“ _Good girl_ ,” he praises, watching your spit pour over him. “Slick me well; should feel you dripping down my - _oh stardust_ \- down my thighs. Shit, this _mouth_.” He’s slowly melting, losing structure and becoming anything but cold as you warm him, make him a helpless puddle of babbling incoherencies and mindless encouragement. “Trained it well. If only you could witness just - _fuck -_ how divine you look. Lips so p-pretty wrapped around my c-cock.”

You lose your good will, pulling up off of him to breath. Thin tethers of saliva keep you connected to him, stretching and bending like streams of syrup. His hand moves to cup your cheek, thumb swiping through the spit smeared on your bottom lip. He likes art, enjoys painting you, and he’s never seen a prettier canvas than you. Panting, hair a little mussed, eyes wide and tears fresh. And when you smile at him so sweetly, laurel on your head, he knows he’s as good as dead.

He huffs as your start to pump him at the base where your saliva has muddled with his precum. He keeps his eyes trained on yours as you wrap your lips tenderly around his aching head and suck _hard._ The sound of his broken whimpers flood your ears and you can feel your cunt, slick against its cloth covering, gather in a hot pool.

“Think you - _oh_ \- like this, the taste of my cock in your m-mouth,” he says, beginning to babble again as your mouth starts a slow, heavy pace. Your hand pumps what remains at his base, twisting as if to wring every last pathetic sob from him, and he starts to lose his senses. Starts thinking about your cunt, drooling and gushing around him, your tits bouncing in his face and his mind is otherwise blank. He truly does sing for you, and no matter how much he tells you he’s in control he’s always the first to drop to his knees. “Look at you, stardust, s-so disheveled. Fucking ethereal. I want - _oh shit, oh stardust wait, wait_ \- c-could I indulge in your cunt? Please, l-let me fuck you, like the g-good girl you are. _Please._ ”

He begs like a dog, sputtering half-thought pleads, and you think you might cum on the spot listening to him so weak for you. Always, for you. His eyes are shut, words like prayers that you are still here and haven’t flown back to Kevva with the rest of the angels yet. 

You slow to a stop, pulling off of him, and there’s something so very heartbreaking about how even after he feels you release he is whispering, _please please please, oh stardust please, let me do this, oh please, just this, this is all I can do, please let me_. He doesn’t seem to even notice when you momentarily climb off of him, strip out of your uncomfortable heat. You climb over him, one hand gently cupping his cheek and the other running through his soft strands. His forehead is damp, hair sticking to it, and you clear his face so you can look at him proper, even with eyes shut as if he’ll open them and you’ll have fluttered away. As if you’ll take your starlight to another despicable moon, melt a different planet and leave him to rot, frozen and dark and _so so alone_.

“ _Shh_ , Ezra, it’s okay,” you coo over him, whisper the words into his cheeks and push them through his pores. You press your forehead to his, kiss his wretched lips to stall the rolling gears of his festered pain. You haven’t kissed him yet, he realizes, and the taste of himself in the warmth of your mouth makes his vision hazy. He wonders if heat has a flavor - sugar-coated, caramelized with the bitter tang of rose petals and the delicate kiss of butterfly wings. Or perhaps it just tastes like you.

When you pull away he chases you, a poor, desperate, beast being pried away from the bright opening of its cave by the mane, being shoved back into the cold, dark musk. When he looks at you his eyes are wide, filled with fear and dread, and he breaks your heart with only a watery gaze.

You take his trembling hand and cradle it yours, keeping your gaze locked with his, and pull in between your bodies, gently bringing him to the soft skin of your pelvis. You let his fingers slide past your hipS and slowly encroach upon the radiating heat of your cunt. He doesn’t press, doesn’t force the gentle, loving wetness of your folds. His thick fingers only barely brush you, just enough to soak them in the melted snow. He seems to gasp, or perhaps shatter like glass animals, moaning spirits leaving his eyes as he whimpers beneath you.

“Do you feel that?” you ask like a revenant, some phantom that flickers between tangibility and obscurity in silver rays. His mind is empty now, forged in gold and stuffed to the brim with daisies. He can only nod and he feels your smile against his cheekbone. “I’m right here, Ezra. I’ll always be right here.”

His eyes shiver at you, glimmer with reverence and asking you the silent question.

“ _Touch me, Ezra_.” 

His fingers take a mind of their own, pressing into you and gliding over your now swollen clit. He has never felt something this real, never felt an angel, but when you bring your cunt down to press against his pelvis, right above the base of his cock, and _grind_ , he thinks right now he has.

He can’t think straight as you drag your drenched pussy up his skin, moaning out at the first real contact where you’ve been needing it. He’s sure you’re grinding half on his fingers, half on him, but all he sees through the hyperfixation of his dark eyes is the open curve of your pretty lips, the shifting of your body over him. Your hand wraps around his throat, _for stability_ you would tell him coyly, but he likes this, being at your mercy. It’s the way things are.

Candid.

He almost looks heartbroken when he notices you’re no longer pressed to him, warmth fleeting, but then there is something soft on the tip of his leaking cock and he _whines_.

“ _Yes_ , stardust,” he says, hand finding your hip. “Sheathe me.”

You sink down slowly, each vein and divot pressing deliciously into your silken walls, stretching you easily. You roll your hips forward as you accommodate him around the base, grinding your clit on his pelvis ever so lightly and drawing choked groans from a man fatefully enamored with the goddesses that rocks him. And you say his name, cry “ _Ezra”_ into the space between you and him, and he’s never heard anything more haunting than when you say it like _that_. 

He has to hear it again.

There is something extraordinary about him filling you so well, stuffing every last crevice of you with him. There is no where to go, no other way for you to take him than entirely _._ Your thighs tremble as you begin to rise and he _drags_ through you like molten honey, both of you already so sensitive that neither of you will last long. He has no expectations, no preconceived notions about what would be good _._ He is not a good man, doesn’t deserve anything good, and yet you always exceed this. He gets perfect, transcendent, gets fucked so devastatingly rapturous that you show him real light, show him Kevva herself. Perhaps he sees her just by looking at you.

The rhythm you soon find with him is slow, almost painfully so, as you make his eyes go blank with glitter. It is not languid as your thighs meet his stroke after stroke, his hand guiding your movements as well as he can, and he is rambling, your heat melting his words and pulling out his loquacious praise.

“ _Yes,_ oh stardust, this pussy gets so creamy for me,” he pants, his eyes unable to decide between being squeezed shut or not because he can barely think, nonetheless see, but the way his cock disappears into your cunt is filthy, simply indecent, and by Kevva if you don’t cum soon he’s going to pound you into the cot with his fingers shoved in your mouth. “Warm, s-so hot around me, look so pretty swallowing my cock. Won’t you cum for me? Cum around me, _please._ ”

He looks so broken, begging for you like the flowers beg the frost for mercy, but it’s not enough. Fuck, it’s _never_ enough, and though your breathing alone is a prayer you have to lean forward a little, let your hand find his throat again.

“More, Ezra I need _more_ ,” you plead, calling to him to give himself to you even though it’s so wrong of you to ask. But he understands, _the rascal_. Even in this suspended state between the peach-tinted lilies he begins to thrust up into you, drawing a splintered yelp from the two of you. Your fingers squeeze a little around his thick, corded throat and you are rewarded with another punishing jerk of his hips.

He sees the stars in your eyes as he drives deep, the sound of it alone something sacrilegious. You desperately meet his hips, clenching around him as if to hold him inside of you, let him uproot you so he can plant himself in the space. He’s mesmerized by how your breasts bounce, how your neck stretches when you throw your head back in bliss, how your face contorts so bewitchingly. You moans grow loud, like pathetic whimpers as he delves deep into you, brushes over the spot that turns you to stardust over and over and _over_ again. He ruins you, racks through your body like supernovas and destroys you from the inside out. When his thumb finds your clit, drawing swirls fast and hard, your hand and pussy clench at the same time and he cries out to you silently, “ _Oh stardust, you must cum for me. Please - hmmm - please, my good girl, I know you’re close._ ” Gone are the smooth slithering words of your silver-tongued serpent, reduced to begging and groveling in hopes that you’ll pity him.

Destroy him.

“Let me take care of you. Let me give you everything I am, _take all of me stardust_.”

“ _Ezra,_ ” you call again, say his name like a soft unanswered prayer, and he can’t handle how annihilating it sounds; he can’t handle being worshipped when he is only a pyre inside of a cathedral. It picks away at the world around him, fills the walls and blurs everything until he’s not even sure what mechanics are going on because he’s lost in the sensation. His thrusts pound with more force as your heady voice encourages him, “ _Oh God, Ezra, just like that, don’t stop don’t stop don’t stop-_ ” His thighs probably burn, his eyes flash white, but he can’t slow down, he can’t _stop_ , so he stays persistent and brutal, and he feels your pussy fluttering and then-

The rapture.

“ _Ezra!_ ” you sob, clamping down on him hard as you gush around his pulsing cock and he _doesn’t stop_. You can barely breathe as he tears you to shreds, claws out from inside of you and combusts you into rose flames. He works you through it, his own fatal end drawing dangerously near as he rakes through your cunt, wild and desperate, and _fuck_ there isn’t one goddamn planet, one moon or forest or iteration of Kevva herself that looks more divine than you when you cum, eyes locked with his as if to show him what he’s done to you, make him see how he’s ravaged you.

He flows through you like waves of bursting heat, the sun’s solar flares that send violent trembles rolling through your body.

“ _Stardust_ ,” he says frantically, his hand leaving your clit to rest over yours around his throat, fingers lightly pressing down as a guide, the silent confirmation you need. “I’m gonna c-cum, oh fuck-”

“Give it to me, Ezra,” you plead, taking his cock and feeling him push through your oversensitive walls, pressing into what will become gloriously sore bruises with time, letting him keep taking you after you’ve given him so much. Your fingers resituate around him, thumb secured around the curve of the column. 

“ _I’ll take care of you_.” 

He gives you one last sloppy thrust, two, three, and then he guides your hand in squeezing tight around his neck, his mouth opening in fatal bliss and his eyes snapping wide. Suddenly there is no frost, no chill, no massive grey weight oppressing his diaphragm. He can do nothing but succumb to you, let rouge fill the corners of his eyes and fire burn in his lungs. He cums _hard_ , thick white streams painting your throbbing cunt with heat as you make him speechless, spineless, _slain_. He sees his soul right before his eyes, transfigurations blending in the black of his mind as he ruts into you, spills every remaining ounce of himself into you.

You ease up on him, let him catch his breath in large, heavy gulps, but he doesn’t move his hand away, keeps you wrapped around him as the last remaining drops fall out of him and stain you. He keeps you caught in the tight cuff of his gaze, watches as the darkness of your lust drains from your eyes and the overpowering pleasure clears from the haze. He begins to soften inside of you, but his fascination with you isn’t quite quenched - it never will be. This is how he is, how you will take him.

His blood.

He releases your hand, lets it fall limp against his chest as his ever-explorative fingers find your still breasts, tugging gently on your nipple. He groans when you flutter around him, already soft but still so _sensitive_. He knows he must look like a mess, sweats at his knees and a grey sweater that’s been dampened, blonde streak plastered to his forehead. But he is so _warm_ , far warmer than a sweater ever could’ve made him, and the air around him almost feels stuffy, hot and humid. Comfortable.

You collapse forward, letting your forehead gently tap against his and your eyes flutter shut.

Just like always.

You hand cups his jaw, nail lightly scraping through his stubble like fingers brushing through field of orchids.

Just like always.

He kisses you instinctively, lovingly, the salt of sweat like tang on his tongue and sitting on the softness of your lips. He feels your lips drag across the scratchy stubble that decorates his jaw, up to press delicately against the scar under his eye.

Just like always.

And he lets out a breath like steam escaping his lungs, tickling your throat.

He enjoys basking with you like this as the scent of sex and pleasure linger in the air, lingers in your bodies. He is lost, still sewn to the realm of sensations and loathe to return to the pod. To return to the cold. 

“Are you okay, Ezra?” you rasp softly, throat now sore from the post-coital scratch. He sneaks one last kiss before humming into your cheek, nodding slowly.

“Yes, stardust,” he sings to you, a foolish, drunken lilt layering over the deep drawl of his words. He can barely register you’re worried about him when he’s like this. “Good.” He takes in a deep sigh, takes in the sweet, puffy clementine euphoria. “Always make me feel so good.”

He turns sweet before you, sugar crystals dissolving into the ocean and melting against your cheeks. This is a different type of speechless, a honeyed brevity that happens when he’s under giggly rays of sunshine.

“You never finished reading to me,” you tease. He cracks a toothy grin against your cheek, opening his eyes to admire the glint of mischief that never seems to fade from your eyes. He doesn’t respond, only presses his hips forward a little. Even without the rigidity of his arousal you gasp, and this is reward enough for him to languorously turn onto you, let the Green pull you under him.

“Is that right?” he says quietly, happily. He lets his weight press into for a moment and you don’t seem to mind, closing your eyes as he melts into your bare skin. Things are still so hazy - your lover finally pulling himself from inside of you, stepping off the cot and returning with his abandoned sweatshirt. Something wet and cold, a rag, wiping you clean. A soft, metal, scraping sound, the press of a canteen straw between your lips and cool water dripping down your inflamed throat. The cold feels soothing now, fills your belly and nourishes your smile. You think you zone out for a moment. Just a moment. And then you are heating the cooled fabric of a man’s sweatshirt and snuggled into the warmth of him.

“Still cold?” he mumbles.

“You are insufferable.” He giggles, a chorus that you quickly join. There are carnations in your neck where he nuzzles you, the delicate scruff of his jaw winsome as it digs into your soft skin.

“I’m only ensuring your wellness,” he insists. “I conducted extensive research before our venture and, granted it was likely for the sake of emphasis, I recorded ample redundancy of the augmented risks of hypothermia and-” You don’t let him get what for him would be a quarter sentence before lifting his aloof chin and slotting your lips against his, both of you still swollen but relishing in the ache (it’s a frequent occurrence, you interrupting his train of thought before he spirals into a place he’d never intended to be). There are tides in his mouth, meadows and stars, and he spills onto you like the transfer of pastel energy between hummingbirds.

A lamb.

“You always make me warm, my love,” you assure, whispering gently against his mouth as if to breathe the words into his lungs. “Like sunshine.”

“You fancy me as the sunshine?” he asks, almost as if he is confused. It never occurred to you that he always felt like he was the frost.

“Like glittering beams of tepid starlight.” He is surprised by your words, and not just the elegant delivery of them, though he always adores messages when they arrive to him in pretty lace packaging.

“Starlight,” he repeats, and you hum in response. As the tip of his nose brushes the side of yours you feel him begin to understand how he brightens you, lightens your gloom and drags mismatched florals against you with the public artistry of his incessant discourse. 

“Ezra?” _Kevva_ how you say his name. It turns him to jelly, compromises the integrity of his muscles. “I lied.” He nods gently against you.

“Now, you know-”

“ _Yes, yes_ , candid discourse. But it’s just that - the sweater. I didn’t find it in the compartment.” He pulls away from you to catch a glimpse of your face, sincere in remorse, and he feels himself melt a little more. “I - well I saw it when I was at that flea market getting supplies , and the vendor only had one size. But it’s so pretty, and I couldn’t stop thinking of you.” His eyes are wide, entirely precious like he’s gazing at the entire galaxy in the small space that your face takes up.

“Pretty things remind you of me, do they?”

“Oh, of _course_.”

“Then I suppose I can forgive you.” He puts another smile on your face and you nod, the movement producing a scraping sound against the cotton pillow case.

Then comfortable silence.

“I was being serious, you know,” you susurrate. “I’d like - if you’re willing - I wanted to hear you finish the poem.”

“I’d do anything for you.” His tone is more serious, and you begin to gather that he wants you to hear him. To believe that he has anything to offer you. “But I - I don’t remember where I left off.”

“Then start from the beginning.” When you implore unto him, pry his soul open like this, his walls turn to cotton candy for you to tear into. So what is he to do but reach down to the floor, pick up his prized journal from where it had been flung to earlier, and card through the worn pages right before your eyes. You feel him settle into your shoulder, cheek pressed against your skin, and his arm stretches across you to prop the book up on the pillow where you can both read the ink in unison. The way soulmates do. Its perfect for running your fingers through his grown-out curls as you poke butterfly-shaped holes in him for that fiercly guarded light to seep out.

_“…She transforms her into a creature more habitable, unleashes what was already lovable._

_Who can recognize the frost when she is wrapped in the embrace of the sunshine?_

_When their lilac lips lock, there are no creatures to bare, no beings to nurture._

_Adoration transcends sunsets, creases the tide._

_Warmth.”_


End file.
